It’s not that bad, she told herself. And, no, it wasn’t. But it wasn’t that good either. What had she been doing with herself—shopping, sleeping, laughing at the uselessness of everything and everyone around her, when all the while it was she who was useless, she who was doing nothing with her life, she who was simply marking time. She thought of Bree and Sam, tangled in Sam’s bed while they talked of nothing. Secretly, she thought, they all despised one another but were too afraid to admit it for fear that the other two might side against the one who committed such a treasonous act.

And she really didn’t despise them. She was no better; it was just that she had woken up and they were still asleep, dreaming a world in which they were safe from experiencing anything other than temporary highs. Well, she would have to leave them there to dream. Unless, of course, they could shake themselves awake, which she doubted.

She put aside thinking about what would come later and thought about what she would do now. She still had the rest of the summer to fill up with, well, with something. But what would that be? She would, she assumed, continue to work with her father. And then there’s Rhodes, she remembered.

Rhodes. Had she really agreed to go out with him? It was such a strange thought. Yet she was looking forward to it, perhaps not with a sense of excitement but with a willingness to see what might happen. He might, she thought, surprise her. Or he might turn out to be as big of a nerd as he seems, she told herself.

And then she realized—it didn’t matter. Nothing, none of it, mattered. The only thing that did was that she be willing to try. Whatever happened after that could be dealt with then. Even if she turned out to be wrong—wrong about whatever choices she would make, and she was sure that she would make many, probably even in the next few hours—she would at least have tried. And if she got hurt in the process, she knew now that she would get over it and move on, a better person for having allowed herself to be human.

You’d better stop all this personal growth, she told herself. Otherwise there won’t be anything left to fix. Then she heard another voice, her real one, laughing at her. Don’t worry, it said, you’ve got a long way to go.

Now she laughed, too, as she picked up her iPod from the bedside table and slipped the headphones over her ears. “That’s fine with me,” she said, turning the volume up and letting the music fill her thoughts. “I’m in no hurry.”

CHAPTER 48

CHAPTER 48